High waisters

I have been looking for jeans like this for years and am a bit crazed to find them before Jan. 1st (when I enter the no fashion purchases for a year experiment). Its been a challenge to find well made, high waisters in the land of jeggings and low rises. I also happen to be looking for denim with minimal washing, no embroidery or crystals, mid-weight and minimal stretch.

The other things I have been panicked to purchase but haven't actually purchased yet are socks, tights, lingerie, and shirts/blouses. Thus far I have only purchased those super cute (hopefully not man repellent) lace up corset no. 6 clogs for spring summer and I want some cute cotton socks to wear as option two, in addition to red toes (to potentially counter act the man repellentness).

Do You Love What You Wear?

So work slowed up and for the first time in 10 months, I left the office early to meet Tara St. James at a Stoll seminar on Life Cycle Analysis (much to my surprise, not the cradle to cradle kind, more the trend kind?) and was free to play around 5:30! Tara stepped in as, Cruise Director and activity no. 1 was a Wear Your Love party thrown by founders Anna Schori and Sofia Hedstrom.

Wear your Love is a...

way of reminding people to value and cherish their clothes. With various collaborators we host Wear Your Love parties in the US and Europe where we invite guests to tell us their personal memories attached to their inherited coats, party dresses and band t-shirts. In the romantic light of our photo boot we document the love. If you can’t make it to our next party we hope you can share your love by sending in your story and a picture to us. Wear Your Love – respect your clothes by remembering their story.

In the first decade of the 21st century we have consumed clothes like fast food, stuffing our groaning wardrobes like sartorial gluttons, but with every trendy new garment that ended up hanging unused in the closet we lost some clothing common sense.

Tara brought to my attention that Sophia had actually spent the last year abstaining from making any fashion purchases and it all seems fuzzy now but, I suggested we do the same??? So we are. Starting January 1.

Ecouterre: Ask a Designer

How can eco-designers stay profitable while advocating slow fashion?

It’s tough but not impossible and definitely more rewarding. The key is this, you have to be equally, if not more creative in designing your business model as your collection or product.

I have always said my biggest challenge wasn't that of being a sustainable designer, it was managing cash flow. The fashion industry, if you work within a conventional business model is a challenge, period. Seasons overlap; you are developing one season at the same time you have to pay production balances to your factories and collect from your customers for the season prior. If you don't have a nice chunk of change in your bank to self finance your development a year in advance, you are waiting for your customers to pay, which doesn't always arrive in time to pay for your production or arrive at all. This cash pickle has nothing to do with sustainable design and everything to do with the fashion calendar, credit availability, market interest rates and your retailer's financial health and/or your relationship with them.

The reality of a global economy makes sourcing "sustainable" materials and production an act of moral and financial gambling. A practice that requires an independent designer to bust out their own moral compass and make calculated and informed decisions, provide transparency and an explanation of the many gray areas to educate consumers.

Having said that, designers CAN design their own business models. Models that work better for them, the needs of the stakeholders and the development and production of their products or collections. This is where designers can really stand out, innovate and get an edge. There are pioneers doing just that, including Alabama Chanin, Tom Ford, Bonobos, Dosa and Patagonia. These are just a few examples.

I earned a degree in business before I studied fashion at CCA and I like to collect business models as a hobby. As part of this pursuit and my collective industry experience, I have compiled a list of eleven factors that I have deduced increase the likelihood of financial sustainability and the success of a business. These eleven factors are not absolutes but rather common themes I have found in brands with staying power, growing companies that are surviving the economic recession and common errors I have witnessed among new entrepreneurs.

1) Rethink success: for the past decade or more the end goal of many fashion brands was growth and often growth through a public offering. Public companies, for the sake of quick quarterly growth tend to sacrifice good design. Getting the maximum amount of goods out the door is the main objective. Often innovative, thoughtful, sustainable design requires a longer development process because it is new and requires time to problem solve and or craft. However, Private vs. Public ownership allows for more control, innovation over time, natural growth and the benefits of success returned to stakeholders rather than shareholders.

2) Triple bottom line business models focus on environmental, social and financial sustainability as opposed to conventional models that focus on growth and/or profit only. Often companies neglect to see the opportunities to provide solutions to social needs via equitable for profit business models.

3) Think vertical. Own or develop a partnership with most or the key parts of the supply chain, including, production, retail outlets, ecommerce, etc. One of the biggest challenges is getting everyone within the supply chain in sync. For example, farmers need to know market demand for organic cotton at planting time, which is typically 8 months prior to sales market for fashion. I've always believed we need a CSA (community supported agriculture) inspired system with cotton farmers. Today, with global cotton shortages it might be the only way that smaller companies can secure cotton and have it available when they need it. The largest global retailers buy up the entire supply. In addition, everyone is tightening his or her belts. Factories demand longer lead times, higher prices and larger orders. Retailers demand shorter lead times, lower prices and place smaller orders. The designer is often left in the middle with out much control and all of the risk.

4) Family funding or other equally invested/aligned partnerships are like winning the lottery. One of the biggest mistakes entrepreneurs make is going into business under-capitalized and or hastily choose partners. The healthiest companies I have seen have partners with different and complimentary strengths. There is someone who designs; another who manages the business and they share a long-term vision. You may be talented enough to do both but at a certain point there are not enough hours in the day to design and manage well. Those designers that have really won the lottery, partner with someone who is established in textiles manufacturing and/or garment manufacturing. See #2.

5) Grow your business through equity vs. debt. Some short-term debt against sales is good and necessary to leverage production but not always available and often expensive. Re-invest profits as much as you can. Taking loans out for reasons other than to pay for production based on hard orders is a high stakes gamble.

6) Don't underestimate the power of scarcity of product. If demand is greater than supply and you are still making a profit that is the good news. You’ll get there.

7) Become best friends with Quickbooks. Seriously. Know what is going on in your business, it will help you make good decisions and prevent disaster.

8) Have a genuine Story and/or "heritage". There is so much stuff out there, designers need to connect and develop relationships with customers rather than chase consumers. Customers (as opposed to consumers) bond with a brand and they come back season after season. One way to do so is to develop a unique process and tell the story about the people behind the scenes, the people making and maybe crafting your product. I think the Craftspeople, the Makers are the next “celebrities” because Americans don't know how to make anymore. The momentum is already there as seen in popular tv shows that give you a glimpse of behind the scenes production like Top Chef or Project Runway. Do not make something up, it’s not very satisfying and transparency will be asked of you.

9) Design timeless pieces and don’t reinvent the wheel every season. This not only cuts down on development costs but also makes a brand more identifiable and reliable. People fall in love with a well-designed piece, wear it beyond a season, tell their friends and come back looking for more.

10) Don’t overspend on marketing/PR expenditures. Although press can give the illusion of success there is not necessarily a direct relationship between press and sales. There are many creative ways to generate a press following but more importantly you need a customer following. Focus on making great, unique products that sell and the press will find you.

11) Live within your means, it’s much more pleasant than living in debt. Do not count the money until it is in the bank and the check has cleared, you just never know what might happen along the way.

SLOW MONEY MEET SLOW FASHION

Dave Cole, "The Money Dress," (Detail of dollar bill fabric), approximately one-thousand one dollar bills cut into continuous strips and knit together in the pattern of a Vera Wang evening gown, 2006.

SLOW FASHION MEET SLOW MONEY.

Slow Money Principles include:

I. We must bring money back down to earth.

II. There is such a thing as money that is too fast, companies that are too big, finance that is too complex. Therefore, we must slow our money down -- not all of it, of course, but enough to matter.

III. The 20th Century was the era of Buy Low/Sell High and Wealth Now/Philanthropy Later—what one venture capitalist called “the largest legal accumulation of wealth in history.” The 21st Century will be the era of nurture capital, built around principles of carrying capacity, care of the commons, sense of place and non-violence.

IV. We must learn to invest as if food, farms and fertility mattered. We must connect investors to the places where they live, creating vital relationships and new sources of capital for small food (or may I suggest small fashion) enterprises.

V. Let us celebrate the new generation of entrepreneurs, consumers and investors who are showing the way from Making A Killing to Making a Living. (amen.)

VI. Paul Newman said, "I just happen to think that in life we need to be a little like the farmer who puts back into the soil what he takes out." Recognizing the wisdom of these words, let us begin rebuilding our economy from the ground up, asking:

* What would the world be like if we invested 50% of our assets within 50 miles of where we live?
* What if there were a new generation of companies that gave away 50% of their profits? (or what if they didn't have to b/c companies served legitimate human needs without exploiting humans and at an expensive to the earth.)
* What if there were 50% more organic matter in our soil 50 years from now?

SLOW MONEY, I KNOW YOU ARE REALLY TIGHT WITH SLOW FOOD, BUT LET ME INTRODUCE YOU TO MY FRIEND SLOW FASHION. SHE'S REALLY PRETTY.

NJAL's SLOW FASHION MANIFESTO

NOT JUST A FASHION LABEL'S SLOW FASHION MANIFESTO

Its always a challenge to define "slow fashion" and I am constantly working on my "elevator speech". I think this manifesto, though not quite elevator speech length, does a really good job explaining the environmental, social, cultural and aesthetic motivation for slowing down fashion.

I would like to add as a designer and a craftsperson, it much more rewarding. There is a human instinct to do a good job well for its own sake, to nourish the head and heart with work of hand.